I asked Chip Bennett to explain in plain English what these changes mean for both theme reviewers and authors. This is what he had to say.

No changes have been made to the overall Guidelines, except that the Theme Unit Tests have been reduced in criticality from “Required” to “Recommended”. Developers should still test their Themes against the TUT before submission, and Reviewers will still test Themes against the TUT during reviews. The only difference is that, now, any observed issues will be noted as recommended fixes, rather than as issues required to address before Theme approval.

These changes come on the heels of a recent blog post published by Mario Peshev where he explained his experience participating in the theme review process for the past two and half years. According to Mario, some of the guidelines still contain too much subjectivity, especially when it comes to credit links located within themes. A side effect of the theme review guidelines is the large amount of themes in the directory that cater to blogging. The argument is that the guidelines do not provide enough leeway to embrace variety. However, Chip noted in the comments:

There’s nothing in the Guidelines that prohibit “business” Themes, or one-page Themes, or WooCommerce/EDD Themes, etc. If there are minor things that need exceptions (such as allowing the screenshot to display a static front page), developers can always ask for such exceptions.

Between the recent change with the theme unit tests and the engaging discussions taking place amongst the theme review community, steps are being taken in the right direction to make the theme review process easier for everyone involved. It’s worthy to note that all of the WordPress theme reviewers are volunteers helping to make the directory a better place.

Who is Jeff Chandler

Jeff Chandler is a WordPress guy in the buckeye state. Contributing writer for WPTavern. Have been writing about WordPress since 2007. Host of the WordPress Weekly Podcast.

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11 Comments

It read more like Automattic crew came down hard on the review team and cracked the whip to dumb down the tests so that Twenty Fourteen would then pass the test even with long post title overflowing over the sideboard.

AUtomattic crew sounded it was all about theme designers but its all about them … 2014 theme and why dad had to pass three reviewers pout.. See track ticket where it all started http://core.track.wordpress.org/ticket/25008

I am in two minds about it… but having never submitted a theme to the Repository before, I have never experienced the submission side of it. However, what I did like about the previous setup is that one would be reassured that the theme *met* certain standards. Ultimately, quite a lot of things are subjective (even auditing or risk management) – it will certainly be interesting to see how the changes might affect the Repository in the future.

It read more like Automattic crew came down hard on the review team and cracked the whip…

Just to be clear: Automattic have no authority over WPORG or the WP Theme Review Team. The decision to make the change came out of considerable discussion by many developers and reviewers, not as an edict from anyone at Automattic. And if it doesn’t work, or we find that overall Theme quality suffers as a result, we’ll change it back.

Yeah, yeah. Sorry for bitching about it again. But that should give you an idea of how much it stung. Now thanks to this article I learned that I wasn’t the only one, not by far. And instead of praising this attempt to change things for the better, some people keep insulting theme submitters.

Had this assumption that the Unit Tests were a substantial part of the Guidelines.

No worries. :) I don’t see the change as especially controversial, to be honest. If a Theme passes all of the code guidelines, there’s very little chance, outside of deliberate design decisions, that a Theme would not pass all of the Theme Unit Tests as well – and we’ve always tried to defer as much as possible to the developer’s design aesthetic and decisions.